• DHS forced to release list terms it monitors on social media

    Following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Electronic Privacy Information center (EPIC), DHS was forced to release its 2011 Analyst’s Desktop Binder; the binder, among other things, contains a list of words DHS uses as triggers of suspicious communication when the department’s analysts monitor social media

  • Using Twitter to share information after a disaster

    A new study shows how people used Twitter following the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan, highlighting challenges for using the social media tool to share information; the study also indicates that social media have not changed what we communicate so much as how quickly we can disseminate it

  • FBI seeking wiretap-ready Web

    As communications have changed in recent years from the traditional telephone system to the Internet, the FBI has found itself facing greater difficulty in carrying out surveillance operations; the agency is asking Internet companies not to oppose a coming proposal which would require them to provide a surveillance backdoor

  • Facebook, antivirus providers in Internet security campaign

    Facebook, Microsoft, McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Sophos have joined in a campaign to make it easier for Facebook users to stay safer and more secure online

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  • The Red Cross, emergency response, and Twitter

    Social media has become such an integral part of our lives that emergency responders are now turning to Twitter and Facebook to gain valuable information during natural disasters or crises

  • NATO commander target of persistent Facebook cyberattacks

    The senior commander of NATO has been the target of repeated Facebook-based cyberattacks that are believed to have originated from China; Admiral James Stavridis is the subject of a campaign to gain information about him and his colleagues, friends, and family

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  • DARPA holds $40,000 competition to test social media in disasters

    To better understand how emergency responders can leverage social media tools, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is holding the$40,000 CLIQR Quest Challenge

  • House grills DHS for monitoring Twitter, Facebook

    Earlier this year reports surfaced that DHS had awarded General Dynamic an $11 million contract to engage in monitoring of social networks; members of both parties including blasted DHS officials for potentially violating the First Amendment and collecting information on citizens engaged in protected political speech

  • Al Qaeda wants to be your “friend” and “follower”

    Hackers attacking databases is just one facet of online terrorist activity; international terrorist organizations have shifted their Internet activity focus to social networks and today a number of Facebook groups are asking users to join and support Hezbollah, Hamas, and other armed groups that have been included in the West’s list of declared terror organizations

  • DHS social media monitoring policy under fire

    DHS’ tactics of gathering intelligence via social media has drawn sharp criticism from privacy advocates with one group filing a lawsuit against the department

  • Lieberman asks Twitter to shut down Taliban accounts

    Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, has requested that the popular social media site Twitter shut down the accounts of the Taliban

  • Social media, a double-edged sword in epidemics

    Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have proven useful in quickly disseminating information, and raising awareness during disasters or disease outbreaks, but these tools can also be a double-edged sword

  • DHS developing social media monitoring guidelines

    Given the critical role that social media tools like Facebook and Twitter played in the Arab Spring, DHS officials say they are now developing guidelines for gathering intelligence from these sources; “We’re still trying to figure out how you use things like Twitter as a source,” said DHS undersecretary Caryn Wagner; “How do you establish trends and how do you then capture that in an intelligence product?”

  • Facebook helps foil arms-smuggling deal

    With the help of Facebook, federal investigators were able to arrest a man on charges of illegally shipping weapons parts internationally after he “friended” his weapons buyer

  • Collaborative social media site for ID and biometric professionals

    Cost overruns, project delays, and poor performance results have long been the bane of government projects, at times resulting in expensive high-profile failures; to help reduce costs and ensure that government projects meet targeted needs, a new collaborative Web-based information-sharing community aimed at bringing together identity and biometric industry professionals, academics, researchers, and government and commercial procurement officers is slated to open